A Nonconformist periodical founded in 1845 by the Congregational Minister, Robert Vaughan, as a rival to the Eclectic Review it aimed, like other periodicals with sectarian origins, such as the North British Review and the Prospective Review, to address a wider, secular audience. Contributors included Hannah Lawrance, G. H. Lewes, David Masson, Coventry Patmore, and Herbert Spencer. (See also Altholz, Religious Press in Britain, Houghton, Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals.)
This periodical did not review Modern Painters I until May 1847, when it reviewed both Modern Painters I and Modern Painters II together (See British Quarterly Review, May 1847). The British Quarterly Review continued to be an enthusiastic supporter of Ruskin's work, defending Ruskin from critical attack by the Quarterly Review and the Edinburgh Review in 1856. Other sympathetic periodicals which took Ruskin's part in response to this attack included the Westminster Review, April 1856, the American Putnam's Monthly Magazine, May 1856, the Eclectic Review, June 1856, Fraser's Magazine, June 1856, the Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, June 1856, and the National Review, July 1856. Many of these represented the interests of religious dissent.